George Butt, sometime
Chaplain-in-Ordinary to
George III, sent his only son to his great friend
Richard Valpy, headmaster of
Reading School. On a visit to the town in 1790, he was favourably impressed by the girls' school, and decided to send his elder daughter as
parlour boarder, a cut above the ordinary boarder. Mary Butt, later known as
the prolific author Mrs Sherwood, devoted two chapters of her memoirs to her schooldays in the 1790s, giving a detailed portrait of life at this long-established
boarding school. Two buildings of
Reading Abbey survived the
Dissolution of the monasteries, the
Hospitium, and the
Inner Gateway. The latter, and a more modern building attached to it, housed the girls' establishment, which was thus known as the Abbey School or the Gateway School. (The
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography calls it "Reading Ladies boarding-school".) It had its own garden, overlooking the open ground of abbey ruins known as
the Forbury, where the boys played. The girls' school dates to before 1755, when Lydia Bell took on as assistant her half-sister Esther (later Sarah) Hackett, who later chose to call herself
Mrs La Tournelle, despite being English and unmarried. Bell bequeathed the school to her sister, whose skills lay more as a housekeeper than a teacher. A Miss Pitts, who was there as a parlour boarder, went on to take partnership of the school. Dr Valpy hired a French émigré, formerly a diplomat,
Dominique de St Quentin (often spelled
without the particle, and sometimes as Quintin). St Quentin and Pitts married, and took over management of the girls' school: "with his knowledge and ability [they] soon raised [its] standard and prestige". Teachers included
Francois Pierre Pictet, formerly secretary to
Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, and her connection to
Voltaire. By the time the Butt sisters were there (Mary was joined the following year by her sister, later
Lucy Lyttelton Cameron), the school had about 60 pupils, including three of the nine daughters of artist
Philip Reinagle. It was expanding, from the ancient gatehouse to adjoining more modern buildings, giving the school new studies and dormitories. The girls were kept busy with rehearsals for "exhibitions" such as a play, in French, and a ball, featuring a quadrille. These performances, shared to some extent with the boys' school, were a good way to demonstrate to parents and prospective customers just what accomplishments they would be purchasing.
Jane Austen was the school's most famous pupil, attending with her sister
Cassandra 1785–1786. She drew on her experiences there when writing
Emma: Following the
execution of Louis XVI at the end of January 1793, the Abbey School became a place of refuge for émigrés such as statesman
Charles Alexandre de Calonne. In addition to this profligate hospitality, St Quentin gambled with Dr Valpy and the father of
Mary Russell Mitford, and soon the school was forced to close. In March 1794 the auctioneer advertised the household and school goods for sale, including 40 bedsteads (beds were shared),
"magic lanthorns" for instruction, and books in French and English.
Claire Tomalin, the biographer of Jane Austen, sums up the school as a "harmless, slatternly place". ==Hans Place, London and Frances Arabella Rowden==